Stocking and method of making



Aug. 11, 1953 v. SKOLE EI'AL 2,648,210

s'rocxmc AND METHOD OF MAKING Filed 111g. 31, 1949 2 Sheets-Sheet l Patented Aug. 11, 1953 STOCKING AND METHOD OF MAKING Vigg o Skole and Hans Christian Andersen, Naerum, near Copenhagen, Denmark Application August 31, 1949, Serial No. 113,376 In Denmark April 19, 1943 Section 1, Public Law 690, August 8, 1946 Patent expires April 19, 1963 11 Claims. 1

This application is a continuation-in-part of our previous application, Serial No. 715,002, dated December 9, 1946, now abandoned, relating to improvements in processes for the production of foot termination portions of stockings in a fullfashioned knitting machine.

This invention has to do with the making of stockings, and more particularly the invention has reference to the manner in which the toe portions of stockings are knit and subsequently handled in the manufacturing process.

The stockings nowadays most favoured by the general public are those produced in the form of a flat knit fabric which upon termination of the knitting process is closed to form a stocking by joining the edges thereof into a seam. For the knitting of the fiat fabric it is customary to use a. so called full fashioned or straight-bar" knitting machine in which the stitches of the course last produced are carried on a row of jointly movable knitting needles, and the yarn is applied in the desired width by yarn carriers movable along the row of knitting needles and is then formed into loops and transferred to the knitting needles to form a new course by suitable movements of a row of sinkers and dividers movable in between the needles as well as of the knitting needles themselves. A plurality of yarn carriers may be used if it is desired to knit the fabric or parts thereof with two or more yarns, and the width of the fabric may be enlarged or narrowed during knitting to form diverging and converging edges by means of sets of narrowing points constructed to pick up stitches from certain needles and to transfer them to others along the row of knitting needles.

Where a machine of the kind described is used in the making of stockings, it has hitherto been the usual practice to produce the toe portion by terminating the fabric with a so-called loose course succeeded by some twenty ravel courses. The stitches of the loose course are jointed to each other by means of a looping operation, and the ravel courses are removed at this time. The looping operation is rather difficult and expensive and in addition is likely to result in defects or weak places occurring in stockings. Various attempts have therefore been made at eliminating the looping operation by terminating the toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales are left defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages, which wales have in some cases been continued through a small number of courses to form a rudimentary tail, the firm selvages being subsequently joined into a seam so that the toe portion is finished in this operation. However, so far as we are aware, none of these prior methods have been commercially successful, because the danger of ravelling at the point of intersection between the firm selvages or at the free end of the rudimentary tail was so great, especially when smooth yarns such as nylon yarns were used, that the percentage of waste was too high to warrant a profitable production.

One object of the invention is to devise a manufacturing process in which the toe portions can be knit with firm selvages converging practically to a point of intersection, and in which the danger of ravelling adjacent the tip so formed is practically eliminated or reduced to such an ex-' tent that toe portions formed in this manner may a point towards which firm selvages of a knit fabric converge.

A further object of the invention is to render possible the production of a toe portion of a particular attractive appearance without an increase or even with an appreciable decrease of the production costs as compared with the conventional methods.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear from the following detailed description of some ways of carrying out the principles of the invention, reference being had to the drawings in which Fig. 1 illustrates the making of a toe portion according to the conventional method,

Fig. 2 illustrates the making of a toe portion according to the invention,

Fig. 3 shows a toe portion made according to Fig. 2 in the process of being folded preparatory to joining the edges thereof into a seam,

Fig. 4 shows the toe portion after seaming,

Fig.5 illustrates one form of a tail produced according to the invention, and

Figs. 6 and 7 are diagrams illustrating other examples of tails according to the invention.

Referring first to Figs. 1 and 2 illustrating the conventional method and our improved method respectively, it will be seen that up to the line I-I, the toe portions of Figs. 1 and 2 are made in exactly the same manner. In both of the figures, the wales are outlined by lines, but it should be understood that this illustration is purely diagrammatical and that each line or the interval between each pair of consecutive lines may represent a plurality of wales. It will be seen that both in Fig. 1 and in Fig. 2, the fabric is gradually narrowed up to the line 1-1 so that convergent form selvages are formed, and in the example illustrated, the narrowing is performed in such a manner that the usual diamond toe with the lines of fashion marks I, 2, 3 and 4 are formed though it is of course immaterial whether the narrowing is performed in this manner or in any other suitable manner.

It will be seen that above the line II, the toe portions of Figs. 1 and 2 respectively are very different. In Fig. l, the numeral 5 indicates a line along which the stitches are ordinarily bound by a looping operation, and beyond the line 5 then follow a number of ravel courses extending over the area 5 to the ultimate course indicated at 1. The ravel courses comprising the portion 6 of the fabric are designed to be cut off in connection with the looping operation.

In the toe portion of Fig. 2 there is no looping line and no ravel courses, but thenarrowing of the fabric is continued above the line 1-1 so that also here firm selvages 8 and 9 are formed which practically extend to a point of intersection forming the tip of the toe blank. The narrowing marks of the fabric whereby the firm selvages 8 and 9 are caused to converge towards the toe termination are designated 10 and H. When the desired roundings with the firm selvages 8, 9 have been produced by continued narrowing up to the points l0 and H, so that only a small number of wales are left, the knitting of these wales is continued through a number of courses to produce a tail or cord I2.

It has been found that if certain conditions are fulfilled, such a tail or cord is very effective as a protection against ravelling at the tip of a toe portion of the form described. To obtain this, it has been found that the number of additional courses must be great enough and the width of the tail small enough to ensure that the tail will roll entirely up on itself in its transverse direction to provide what can be justifiably denominated a cord-like structure, and moreover this structure should preferably be of suflicient length to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tendin to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction. In practice, the tail may e. g. have a length of about an inch and a width of say 4-8 wales. If the tail is made too short or too wide, it will not afford any protection against ravelling. It is probably the failure to recognize these facts that accounts for the inefficiency of the prior methods attempting at avoiding the looping operation. Apparently, it has been felt that the tail should not be made too long in order not to interfere with subsequent manufacturing steps or to disturb the final form of the toe portion, but it has been found, according to the invention, that a tail of sufficient length to afford protection against ravelling may be used without causing any inconvenience in the production and without being detrimental to the quality of the finished product since even a relatively long tail or cord l2 will practically vanish when sewn into the seam joining the edges of the toe blank as illustrated in Fig. 4, whereby the stitches of the cord are at the same time fixed in a very reliable manner. In fact, the tail will hardly be noticeable in the finished product.

While a tail knit in the ordinary manner wil already afford a relatively gOOd protection against ravelling, provided the length and width thereof are selected as indicated above, such a tail is still subject to ravelling if a direct pull is exerted in the yarn extending from the end of the tail. However, to overcome this difficulty it is proposed according to the invention to knit the tail in a ravel-resisting pattern, and the invention also provides particular forms of the tail whereby ravelling in this manner is made practically impossible and which are therefore highly recommendable particularly when smooth yarns such as nylon yarns are used.

One form of such a special tail structure is illustrated in Fig. 5. To clarify the illustration the tail has been shown in flat form though it will be understood that in practice it will roll up on itself in its transverse direction. In this example, the tail is knit in a width of four wales. It will be noted, however, that the two left hand wales are knit with two yarns while the two right hand wales are knit with one yarn only. This is obtained by using two yarns which during the knitting are guided in such a manner by the respective yarn carriers that one yarn is applied over the two left hand wales only, while the other yarn is applied over all of the four wales. Each of the two yarns is applied by means of a separate yarn carrier, and at a certain time, these will both be in an extreme left hand position and will then move jointly to the right until both yarns have been applied in the width of two wales. Then one of the yarn carriers remains stationary, while the other yarn carrier moves on to apply its yarn over the additional two wales. When the second yarn carrier has returned to the position where the first yarn carrier remained stationary the two yarn carriers will move jointly back to the extreme left hand position.

As will be seen, the two yarns will extend from the end of the tail in different wales as shown at [3 and M. It has been found in practice that with a tail knit in this manner, there is practically no danger of ravelling because the yarns run together in some wales and extend at different points so that the two yarns will so to speak bind one another against ravelling. Thus, if a pull is exerted in any one of the two yarns, the other one of the yarns will have a binding effect in the stitches common to the two yarns, and if the free ends of the two yarns l3 and M are gripped together and subjected to a pull, then the yarn M will immediately yield a little in the stitches individual thereto, so that the whole of the pull will be in the yarn l3, and the yarn I4 will consequently have a binding effect in the stitches which it has in common with the yarn I3. In fact, the only kind of a pull that is likely to cause ravelling is a pull alternating between the two yarns l3 and I4, and this is a kind of influence that is very unlikely to occur in practice.

A similar mutual binding effect between different yarns may be obtained with other numbers of wales and/or yarns than shown in Fig. 5. Some further examples are diagrammatically shown in Figs. 6 and 7. In these figures the intervals between vertical lines are intended to represent wales while the yarns knit into the wales are represented by three different kinds of hatching lines, viz. lines inclined to the right indicating a first yarn, lines inclined to the left indicating a second yarn and horizontal lines indicating a third yarn.

In Fig. 6 the tail is composed of six wales knit with a first yarn extending over the four left hand wales and extending from the end of the tail at I5 and a second yarn extending over the four right hand wales and extending from the end of the tail at H5. Thus, it will be seen that the two yarns run together in the stitches of the two wales in the middle.

Fig. 7 illustrates an example where the tail is made up of eight wales knit with three yarns, viz. a first yarn extending over wales No. 1-4 from the left, a second yarn extending over wales No. 1-6 from the left, and a third yarn extending over all of the eightwales.

It will be understood that in all these examples the yarns in the tail may form a continuation of yarns in the toe portion proper, it being observed that the toe portion is usually knit with a plurality of yarns to form a reinforcement so that it is not necessary to introduce a fresh yarn in the tail portion, though of course this may be done, if desired. It is to be noted that it is entirely possible and even desirable according to the invention to knit the tail with the same yarn as the stocking proper, even if this is a very smooth one such as a nylon yarn, without any risk of ravelling occurring during the manufacturing process or in the finished stocking.

While certain forms of ravel resisting patterns have been described above it should be understood that the invention also comprises such other forms of ravel resisting patterns as will present themselves to the expert on the basis of the teaching of the invention, as well as all such modifications as come within the scope of the appended claims.

We claim:

1. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing unti1 only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of said wales through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of sufficient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction.

2. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of said wales with the same yarn through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of suflicient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and thus to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction.

3. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, continuing knitting of said wales through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of sufiicient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and thus to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction, joining said selvages into a seam to close said toe portion, and at the same time bending said cord-like structure so as to extend along said selvages to be thereby gathered into said seam concurrently with said selvages.

4. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of said wales with different numbers of yarns in different wales to form a ravel resisting tail.

5. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, con-' tinuing knitting of said wales with different numbers of yarns in different wales through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of sufiicient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and thus to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction, joining said selvages into a seam to close said toe portion, and at the same time bending said cord-like structure so as to extend along said selvages to be thereby gathered into said seam concurrently with said selvages.

6. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of a portion of said wales with at least one yarn and of an overlapping portion of said wales with at least one other yarn through a number of courses great enough to produce, in the whole width of said small number of wales, a tail of sufiicient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and thus to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction.

7. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of said wales with a plurality of yarns to form an elongated tail, and during such knitting so carrying the various yarns over the width of the tail that two yarns run together in some wales and extend from different wales at the remote end of the tail.

8. For use in the making of stockings, a toe blank comprising a body portion formed by wales gradually narrowed down to a small number at one end of said body portion to form a tip, and a tail extending from said tip and forming a continuation of said small number of wales and having different, though overlapping groups of wales knit with different yarns.

9. A stocking having a toe portion comprising a toe blank as set forth in claim 8 seamed into the form of a converging tube and having said tail sewn into the seam thereof.

10. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said firm selvages are left, and then continuing knitting of said wales in a ravel resisting pattern through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of sumcient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure and thus to prevent the transfer to the remote end of such cord-like structure of stresses tending to draw out the toe portion in its transverse direction.

11. In the making of stockings, the steps of terminating a blank toe portion with firm selvages by continued narrowing until only a small number of wales defining practically a point of intersection between said ;flrm selvages are left, continuing knitting of said wales through a number of courses great enough to produce a tail of sumcient length to cause such tail to roll up on itself 8 in its transverse direction to form an elongated cord-like structure, joining said selvages into a seam to close said toe portion, and at the same time bending said cord-like structure so as to extend along said selvages to be thereby gathered into said seam concurrently with said selvages.

VIGGO SKOLE. HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Number Name Date 2,296,302 Weisbecker et a1. Sept. 22, 1942 2,304,053 Kaufman Dec. 1, 1942 FOREIGN PATENTS Number Country Date 223,511 Germany June 24, 1910 905,418 France Apr. 16, 1945 

